


Flight Risk (Red Bull Mashup)

by qwerty



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Childhood, Harm to Children, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having wings and flying don't necessarily go together, but sometimes you have wings and you fly, and it's not a dream but real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight Risk (Red Bull Mashup)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [How Merlin Found Out About His Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1660) by thedreamisreal. 



The first time it happened was the winter after Will's father died. They were snowed in with no hope that William would dig his way through the snowdrifts and tell them to join him and Mary in their cottage so they could share the fire and Merlin and Will could keep each other entertained. Instead, Hunith was trying to relight the fire after a particularly strong gust of wind had sent wet slush down the chimney into their fireplace, while Merlin turned the pages in one of the books Gaius had given her when she had left Camelot with Balinor, the light in his eyes all he needed to see by.

She bit off a curse when the wet wood refused to catch again, the little kindling she had left guttering out with wet pops, and glanced over to check that Merlin hadn't heard. He hadn't - the boy was tracing the illuminated dragon on the page with a small finger, fascinated. Then he folded over on himself and screamed.

Hunith dropped the tinder and flint and rushed to catch Merlin as he started to topple - something in his back moved and she nearly let go, but grabbed him again just as something _cracked_ and then - a wet, ripping sound, sharp bones piercing through the shirt - Merlin was still screaming. She covered his mouth, muffling the sound - _the neighbours must not hear and wonder_ \- and clutched her baby close to her, pushing his face into her shoulder so he could not cry, as she had done when he was a squalling newborn and given to making random things fly about the room when he was upset. She pressed her cold cheek to his red and flushed one, trying to whisper nonsensical comfort: "It's all right, sweetie, Mama's here, you'll be all right," while she wondered if it was a curse, if he was dying, if, if, if -

When he finally stopped keening into her shoulder, Hunith found that she was staring blankly at blood and shreds of skin smeared over bony, sharp-tipped wings gleaming dull gold like the Great Dragon's had been. Merlin stirred and asked faintly, "Am I dying, mama?"

"Don't be silly," she said, wondering how she was going to hide the wings, would the change stop there, would that busybody Anna come over and see what the screaming had been about and tell someone for a bounty. "You always think you're dying. You're just growing up, baby. You'll be all right," she soothed. "You'll be all right." She kept whispering it over and over again, rocking him softly while he hiccupped sobs and clutched at her, the terrible tell-tale wings flexing and shivering against his small back.

They woke in the morning, half-frozen and stiff, bitter salt crusted over their eyes and faces, but the wings were gone as if they had never been. Hunith told Anna about how her silly son had dreamt he had wings and thought he was dying, like children always do when they have so much as a scrape on their knees. That night she used the book for tinder, and burnt the bloody rags of Merlin's shirt.

The second time, Will challenged Merlin to climb over Farmer Morris's fence and run across his field: the old man hated children and always shouted and threw sticks whenever any of the village boys came near a particular field.

Merlin quickly discovered that Mean Morris might have had a good reason for keeping them out. There was a red bull in the field. A very big, very angry red bull. Maybe it was angry because it was red? Anyway, Merlin was clearly not going to be able to outrun the bull. He ran anyway, little legs pumping as fast as he could make them go, eyes squeezed shut so he wouldn't see when the bull caught up and ripped him to pieces. He tripped, felt the bull's snorting breath almost on his back, and then he was _pulled_ into the air and Will was yelling, and he opened his eyes - and fell to the ground on the other side of the fence, the bull bellowing and pawing the ground in the distance. Will grabbed his hand and they ran for it, tumbling together to the ground breathlessly once they reached the safety of their favourite apple tree.

"Did you see? Did you?" Will was practically shrieking. "The red bull gave you wings! I want to try too!" And because Will was always as good as his word, he jumped up and made to head back to the field immediately, and Merlin had to run and tackle him to stop him.

"I think I already had them," Merlin explained, Will wriggling and moaning in protest under him. "It was last winter - my mum said it was just a dream and I was being silly and carrying on about dying - I didn't really remember until now." Then he thought about it and turned his head as far around as his neck would allow, but he couldn't see any wings, just a ripped-up shirt that his mum would scold him for.

"They're gone," Will sulked for a moment, having noticed the same thing. Then lit up again with another bright idea. "Maybe they only appear when you are in danger!"

Which was how Hunith came to find Will chasing Merlin with a sharp stick while he yelled and his wings periodically flickered into being. She snatched the stick from Will's hand and threw it away, and dragged Merlin back by his ear. Once she had him safely behind the closed door of their house, she slapped him and cried, and warned him never to let anyone see his wings ("just like the magic, Merlin, my baby, please, I don't want to ever lose you,") until he promised ("not even to Will") and the wings once again faded in his mind into a silly child's dream.

So Merlin and Arthur were once again running through the woods, pursued by soldiers - whose bowstrings had all opportunely snapped all at once when the first one tried to sight down on Arthur, and Merlin was panting and cursing Arthur's name every time he half-stumbled over a root or pothole and Arthur grabbed his arm and dragged him along. "Do I trust you? Sure, let's conquer all of Albion in the name of Camelot, it'll be a piece of cake. We'll ride through Cenred's lands without the knights, easier to slip through the patrols that way. Leave the horses, we'll be harder to track. I don't know, should I trust you?"

He stopped short and nearly fetched up against Arthur's back mid-rant, and caught his breath when he saw what had stopped Arthur.

They had reached a sheer precipice over a ravine cut deeply into the woods, a hundred yards too far too jump over a thousand-foot drop. And behind them, the shouts of the soldiers, growing ever closer.

"Shit. We're trapped."

"I can see that. Would you like to state anything else that is blindingly obvious to a child of three?" drawled Arthur in that irritating supercilious way he had when he was afraid and didn't want to show it, and swatted Merlin's head.

"It's your fault we're in this situation, you bull-headed horse's hind end," Merlin yelped, and paused, struck by a sudden inspiration. "Bull. Arthur. Do you trust me?"

Arthur stared at him, clearly sceptical.

"Because I'm not sure, myself," Merlin said, waving his hands wildly. "But maybe, if you believed - Do you trust me?"

Arthur glared, narrow-eyed, then shook his head and grabbed Merlin by the scruff of his neck. "Gods help me. I do. Yes, I do."

"Good!" Merlin said, throwing his arms around Arthur, and they fell off the precipice together, both yelling their heads off.

When the rushing of wind failed to end in bloody, messy thumps on the ground after an unaccountably long time, Arthur opened his eyes and stared in wonder at Merlin, golden-eyed and golden-winged, flying low through the woods, past the stand of white birches he had seen on the other side of the ravine. "Merlin," he exhaled, "you marvel-"

"What - don't distract me!" Merlin squawked, then they tumbled two feet down into the bushes. "You prat. You never pick the right time for anything."

"Ow. You idiot. Is that any way to talk to your king, who has graciously cushioned your fall with his own royal person? That you were supposed to be protecting?"

"I just saved your life again, you clotpole. I can't imagine why I even bother sometimes."

"You girl."

"Prat."

"Idiot."

"Donkey-headed -"

"Shut up," Arthur ordered, rolling them to pin Merlin under him, and silenced him by way of clamping his mouth over Merlin's.

Nevertheless, Arthur managed to retain enough of his wits to grab Merlin's hand before he could get anywhere interesting, and said, "This will have to wait until we get back to Camelot. And then you're going to tell me _everything_."


End file.
